McCool stopped, his eyes suddenly wide with inexpressible fear as he looked over Jon’s shoulder, behind him.
What? Jon thought. He risked a glance behind and his own heaving heart almost stopped.
It was the Hessian, as if fresh from his own killing. His uniform was torn and rent, his chest was heartless and bloody, his face awful from the beating he’d taken. His eyes glared ferociously as he advanced, his dire gaze fixed on McCool.
McCool backed away as the specter advanced. The Irishman moaned in terrible fear and stuttered prayers to Jaysus, Joseph, and Mary, but no one answered. He turned to run at the last moment as the Hessian reached out for him with bloody, broken fingers, but he was teetering at the edge of the open trapdoor and with a terrified scream Tully McCool fell down the stairs directly into the dancing flames. He fell as if he were plummeting [255] into Hell and he never stopped screaming, even when he hit bottom and the flames surged around him and were sucked into his lungs.
Jon swayed and fell to his knees. His hand knotted in his blood soaked shirt pressed against the awful pain in his chest. The Hessian turned to him and suddenly he looked like a normal man, with a plain, stern, but very human-looking face.
He kneeled down next to Jon.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can do no more. I don’t have the strength to bring you and Frau Derlicht to safety.”
Jon coughed when he tried to speak, bringing up blood. The blade had nicked one of his lungs when McCool had pulled it from his chest. He spat the blood from his mouth and tried again.
“Then the fire will kill us.”
“No.” The Hessian gripped his upper arm. It felt like the caress of a kitten’s paw. “You have the power. You do. Use it. Summon water from the sky, from the ground, from anywhere, to douse the fire. Do it,” the Hessian said. “Do it ... do it ... do it ...” he repeated as he slowly faded away.
Power? Jon thought. I’ve been helpless all my life to the whims of my father, and now my brother. My brother. I can’t die. Agatha can’t die. We can’t let him get away with everything. With Trudi.
Power? All right. Let’s see.
Though he didn’t believe, his anger pushed him to dig deep down inside himself and inside he found something that he fastened upon. Something ancient. Powerful. [256] Unyielding. He grinned, coughing blood. I’ll show them power! he thought. Like they’ve never seen before!
Later, they all said it was a miracle. It was another tale to tell of Geiststadt, the spirit city, and the strange things that had happened there over the years.
Old Derlicht Haus had caught fire. Its ancient wooden structure burned like the devil himself had set the blaze. It seemed as doomed as those inside who couldn’t escape, among them Agatha Derlicht, and, as Pompey reported, young Jon Noir.
But angry black clouds appeared suddenly out of the clear afternoon sky. Thunder boomed like the roll of ancient drums and lightning split the darkness. It began to rain torrentially, as if someone had opened a spigot in the sky, but only on the Derlicht estate, directly over the old burning house.
But that was not all. The wind swirled madly and a waterspout appeared over the millpond that, fed by Skumring Kill, stood usually so placidly between the Derlicht and Noir estates. The wind blew like a hurricane and flung the waterspout through the sky, hurling it against the burning building, dowsing the inferno. Later, dead fish and dried water plants were found throughout the wreckage.
Despite the miraculous rain, the building was nearly a total loss. Most of it was destroyed, from the second floor down to the cellar where a ruined clutter of burnt beams, flooring, and furniture made an impenetrable jumble of destruction. The devastation was complete.
Except, oddly enough, for part of the attic which still stood impossibly untouched in the shell of the house. [257] The villagers had to use ladders to reach it, because they heard weak cries for help once the fire had been so mysteriously extinguished.
Inside they found Agatha Derlicht. She was wet and cold and somewhat bewildered by events, but well enough to live for seven years after the odd events of that day, and die in bed with a smile on her face.
She was all right because Jon Noir had huddled over her and wrapped her in his arms to protect her from flame and falling debris. They found him with an expression of utmost concentration, some said anger even, on his usually placid features, dead from a deep chest wound that simply could not—should not—have existed, as there was no weapon in the attic nor anyone else present who could have made the wound.
Thomas sat in his study, relieved and puzzled at the same time. He couldn’t quite understand what had happened. McCool, apparently, had set the fire that destroyed Derlicht Haus. Thomas smiled to himself. When the bogtrotter created a diversion, he really created a diversion. How the fire was extinguished was a mystery, but then mysteries abounded in Geiststadt, and always would. Thomas had had no trouble in getting his spell doll back from the bunkhouse. It now resided safely under lock and key in his study’s desk.
The fate of the bloodstained trousers was more problematical, but with Jon dead, perhaps they would never turn up. As far as he’d been able to discern, Jon had never told anyone about them. Perhaps the secret of their hiding place had died with Jon. And, if indeed they did turn up in the weeks or months or years to come, Thomas [258] would just deal with them as he had dealt with every obstacle that had so far been put in his path. Perhaps everything hadn’t worked out exactly as he’d planned, but all in all he was in a good position. Better, at any rate, than Jon and the Captain, for example.
There came a sudden knock at the study door, and Thomas looked at it, annoyed.
“Come,” he ordered, wondering who was disturbing him now. Suddenly, he thought that perhaps it was McCool, returned after laying low for a while after his spectacular pyrotechnic performance. He was disappointed to see that it was only the darkie, Isaac.
“Yes, what is it?” Thomas asked impatiently.
“Mister Irving and Constable Pierce want to speak to you,” Isaac said in his soft, rumbling voice.
“All right. Show them in.”
“Yes, sir.”
A sudden thought struck Thomas. “Oh, and go down to Miss Schmidt’s place and fetch her for me. I’d like to see her.”
Isaac shook his head. “No, sir.”
“What?” Thomas asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“No, sir. I’ll tell the gentlemen to come in, but that’s it. I ain’t running your errands. I ain’t working for you no more. Me and some of the men are going to go to work for the Derlichts. They need extra hands to build the house again and all.”
Thomas was incensed. “Noir gold is not good enough for you any more?” he asked angrily.
“No, sir,” Isaac said steadily. “Thomas Noir gold ain’t.”
[259] He opened the study door, said, “Gentlemen,” and stepped aside so Irving and Pierce could enter. Then he left Noir Manor, forever.
Thomas clamped down on his seething anger, promising to himself to see about Isaac later, and managed a smile as Irving and Pierce came up to his desk.
“Gentlemen,” he said, fairly genially, “sit down.”
“No thank you,” Irving said stiffly. “We’d rather stand.”
Thomas frowned. “All right.”
“Let me come to the point,” Irving said. “You’re a murderer, sir, a cold-blooded vicious killer. Whether by hire or by your own hand, it’s all the same.”
“What?” Thomas felt the blood drain from his features.
“It’s all true,” Pierce said mildly. He pursed his lips. “Where’s your man McCool?”
Thomas thought quickly. “No doubt halfway to Brooklyn by now. He left my employ early this morning.” Thomas leaned forward. “I discovered he wasn’t totally reliable.”
“No doubt,” Irving said thinly. “After careful consideration of the events of the past five days Constable Pierce and I have decided that you’re the one responsible for the wave of death
and violence that has washed over Geiststadt like an evil tide. No other human agency. Certainly no inhuman one.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Thomas said. He was thinking furiously, a cold sensation in the pit of his stomach. “McCool might have been responsible for it, but not under my instigation.”
“Whose, then?” Pierce asked mildly.
“Jon’s,” Thomas said in suddenly inspiration.
[260] “Preposterous!” Irving said.
Thomas shook his head, growing more confident. “Oh, no. My brother was quite bitter about his status. He felt he’d worked long and hard for no effect. He felt much more was due him. Why, after hearing some of his wild claims and accusations I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d hatched the scheme, killed, what’s-his-name, the cowherd, killed his old enemy Rolf, even killed Johann Schmidt so he could be closer to his daughter, then killed the Captain for his money.” Thomas smiled. “It all fits. He probably even started the fire at Derlicht Haus. Who else could have?”
“Tully McCool,” said Pierce.
“But he wasn’t here.” Thomas shrugged, hoping that they’d never find the bogtrotter’s burned bones in the wreckage where they most likely resided.
“Moonbeams and sunshine,” Irving said. “You’re the one behind it.”
Thomas’s smile remained steady. “Do you any proof of that?”
“Proof?” Pierce shook his head. “Unfortunately, none that would stand in a court of law. We do, however, have this.”
His hand was a blur as it reached under his coat, then flashed downward in a throwing motion. McCool’s long-bladed dagger vibrated, point first, in Thomas’s desktop, right in front of him.
“That’s not mine,” Thomas said. His voice was a bit thinner than he had intended.
“No, sir,” Pierce said. “But it belonged to your man McCool. He was seen starting the fire that consumed [261] Derlicht Haus. He was carrying that very blade. The flames prevented our witness from following him, but he was able to rouse the house, so most of its occupants were able to escape. Later, our witness found that,” he nodded at the dagger embedded in the desktop, “amidst the rubble of the burned-out building.”
Isaac, Thomas thought. That damned darkle. He managed a smile that he hoped was believable.
“Interesting story.” He pulled the dagger from the desktop and examined it briefly before dropping it aside. “But it has nothing to do with me. Even if what you say is true, there’s no proof that I was involved with any of this chicanery.”
“No proof,” Irving said, “but moral certainty. We know you, sir. We knew your brother Jon. Even after our brief acquaintance we know which one of you was capable of these horrendous crimes.”
Thomas laughed. Moral certainty! What did he care of that? They had no proof of his involvement that would stand up in a court of law. Not a shred of evidence of his guilt. “The people will believe me,” he said, “because they like a good story. And because I’ll be here to tell it.”
“They may believe your lies in Geiststadt, sir,” Irving said coldly. “But do not bring your vile tale to Manhattan. If you do, I will make sure which version of the affair is believed.”
Thomas frowned. “Are you threatening me, sir?”
Washington Irving leaned forward, placing his hands on Thomas’s desk.
“Yes,” he said, distinctly. “I am. The events of the past [262] few days would make for an interesting story. Perhaps I shall write it. With the names changed, of course. Even so, the people who read it will know.” He stood up. “Manhattan is a small island. We don’t need your kind there. Even in Europe society runs in small circles, and I have entree to all. If you ever dare to show your face in decent society, I will ruin you. I will make sure men spit at your shadow and women run from your offered hand. That is all, sir.”
Irving turned to leave.
“He threatened me!” Thomas shouted. “Constable Pierce! You heard him!”
The constable looked all around the study. “Gracious,” he said. “This is an interesting room. We have nothing like it in Brooklyn.” He followed Irving to the door, but stopped, and turned back toward Thomas, who was staring at them with naked hate twisting his features into a grotesque mask. “It’s gloomy, though. I hope you’ll enjoy it for a long, long time.”
He pulled the door shut after him.
EPILOGUE
June 21st, 1842, dawned like many of the other first days of summer that had come to Geiststadt, a small village nestled between hillridge and marsh in Kings County, New York, on the west end of Long Island. It was bright and sunny, pleasantly warm with the mildness of spring surrendering to the sultry promise of summer in the air.
Despite the beautiful weather, Noir Manor seemed cold and empty to its new master, Thomas Noir, a man who had never before cared about or for the people who surrounded him. As he walked slowly down the stairs from his bedroom to the kitchen, he ticked off the names in his head. Benjamin Noir, dead. Jonathan Noir, dead. James and Seth Noir, gone. Tully McCool, vanished, presumably dead. Isaac and most of the servants and farmhands, gone. Even Washington Irving and Constable Pierce, gone.
He reached the kitchen and managed a smile at Callie, good old loyal Callie, rocking in her chair before the fire.
“I guess that just leaves you and me, old woman,” he said. But Thomas Noir was not a man to dwell on his problems. Though abandoned by nearly everyone on a bankrupt estate, his dream of a luxurious life among the capitals of the world vanished, he still had something to hold on to. “But not for long. Soon I’ll bring Trudi here as my wife, and I’ll start siring those thirteen sons.”
There were problems, of course. But he had a long time [264] to work them out. A very long time, once he’d had a thirteenth son. Most financial problems could be solved if you had a head on your shoulders and a long time to solve them. He would yet see the capitals of the world. In forty or fifty years. In a practically brand new twenty-one-year-old body. He sat down at the kitchen table, smiling. Yes, it was all just a matter of perspective. Of patience. Of time.
“Callie, some tea.”
She didn’t reply, didn’t even indicate that she was aware of his presence in the room. Annoyed, Thomas looked over at her. She was rocking away before the blazing fire on the sultry first day of summer, Thomas’s twenty-first birthday. For the first time he noticed that she had a large bound volume open on her lap.
“What do you have there?” he called out.
“Captain’s journal,” she said softly, “with a copy of the spell of transference from a thirteenth son to a thirteenth son. I’ve been studying it these days. Studying it hard, to see where the Captain went wrong.”
Thomas smiled. “Well, that’s fine. I’ve been wanting to see it, and you’ve tracked it down already. Let me take a look.”
For the first time Callie gazed at him, and he saw bitterness on her face. Bitterness and loss and sudden contempt that struck him like a blow.
“Why?” she asked, her voice scornful. “Won’t do you no good.”
“What do you mean?” He was taken aback by her strangely defiant tone.
“Says here how you number the sons,” she said, her [265] tone mocking. “Abortions don’t count. Stillbirths don’t count. The babes have to take a breath of air before they can be reckoned.”
Thomas frowned. “So? That just makes it easier to keep track, don’t it?”
“Birth order don’t count,” she said in that same terrible voice.
“What? That’s preposterous—”
“Order of conception. That’s what counts.” She laughed as Thomas sat there, looking at her. “Don’t you see, boy? It was Jon! He was the thirteenth! You’re the fourteenth. He was conceived before you, boy. He was the one who got his daddy’s heka.”
“Ridiculous!” Thomas said. He rose from the table and stalked over to Callie’s spot by the fire. “Preposterous!”
Thomas felt his anger rising. He couldn’t tell if the heat on his face was fro
m the fireplace or his own internal rage. “I am the thirteenth son!”
“You ain’t nothing, boy,” Callie said. And she laughed at him again. It was the cruelest thing she could have done.
Thomas roared wordlessly in anger. He loomed over Callie like an avenging angel of death. His shaking hands reaching out to crush the life from her and he saw her eyes as, unafraid, she looked up at him from her chair. Her eyes were cold and hard and powerful. Their impact cooled his anger like water thrown on a red-hot poker. He swayed on his feet, suddenly weak and afraid. She had the heka, he suddenly knew. Far more than he. Thomas stood stone-faced, suddenly withered inside. She [266] was right. He knew it now. All his life had been a lie. He was nothing.
All that planning. All that killing. All that blood. All for nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing but endless days grubbing a pathetic, sordid living out of the dirt. Nothing but a step-by-step, day-by-day trip to the grave, with no way to avoid it and no means to cushion the years as they dripped slowly by.
Callie laughed and laughed. “Jon was the one! He had the power! He had the heka!” Her laughter turned to sobs that trickled to a whisper husky with the sound of coming death.
“And I tell you. I see it. I see it clear as yesterday. He’ll come back, boy. And he’ll be mad.”
Thomas Noir put his hands over his face, but nothing would come, not even tears of despair.
Agatha Derlicht visited Jon Noir’s grave nearly every day of her remaining years. In the end, Isaac, the new butler of the new Derlicht Haus, had to carry her there in his strong arms. Often they were accompanied by Roderick Derlicht, his wife, and, as the years passed, their children.
Butterflies danced over the grave, drawn by the wild-flowers blooming there in unbridled profusion from earliest spring to the last days of autumn. Roderick’s and Trudi’s children chased them, laughing, as they fluttered above the resting place of Jonathan Noir’s mortal remains in intricate ephemeral patterns of perfection and grace.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Book 1: Shades of Night, Falling Page 21